Futurama Redux: Urban Mobility After Cars and Oil

Given Seattle’s explosive growth, the arrival of a new exhibition about urban transportation is well-timed.

Futurama Redux: Urban Mobility After Cars and Oil, which will be a the at the Center for Architecture & Design December 7 through February 17 is the first full U.S. showing of an international traveling gallery exhibition about the future of transportation. It has previously shown in Vienna, Hong Kong, and other cities.

A smaller version of the exhibition was shown at the Seattle Public Library in September during the Seattle Design Festival.

The exhibition asks: how would we live, work, and play in cities if our transportation systems were no longer dependent upon fossil fuels and cars? No surprise, bicycles are big part of the answer.

Florian Lorenz discusses “bicycle urbanism” during this TED talk.

Futurama Redux was inspired by the Futurama exhibition at the 1939 World’s Fair, sponsored by General Motors, and predicted an automobile-dominated future.

Now more than 75 years later, our automobile-centric reality is not quite the utopia GM envisioned. Pollution, traffic, and a myriad of issues related to our use of fossil fuels prompt the creators of the exhibit to wonder: What comes next?

Futurama Redux vividly imagines ways that we might create a city that doesn’t rely on cars to move people around. Florian Lorenz of Smarter Than Car, the think tank behind this exhibition, is a major proponent of “bicycle urbanism,” which offers one answer.

Look for more about the exhibit at the Seattle Bike Blog. Weather and scheduling permitting in early December, Florian, Tom Fucoloro (producer of Seattle Bike Blog), and I plan to produce some short video interviews in the streets of Seattle where we attempt to apply the idealism of bicycle urbanism to Seattle’s reality.

Opening Reception
Join us for drinks and snacks
December 7: 6pm – 8pm @ Center for Architecture & Design

Guided Tours with Exhibition Curator Florian Lorenz (Smarter Than Car)
December 8 & 9 | 11am & 1pm @ Center for Architecture & Design

Imagineering A Postcarbon Seattle
December 9: 2-4pm @ Center for Architecture & Design